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Physics 1204 / Music 1466

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CORNELL LINKS: Cornell Music Department | Cornell Physics Department | Cornell Chimes


SOFTWARE FOR TYPESETTING EQUATIONS

1. MS Word Equation Editor

Microsoft Word Equation Editor http://www.ele.uri.edu/Courses/ele343/tutorials/word.equations/wordequations.html

2. MS Word, using EQ Field Code and Switches (this is what Dr. Selby uses) Equations in MS Word.doc

3. LaTex (more technical, but some people REALLY like it!)
What the heck is LaTeX? http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~smcpeak/latex/whatislatex.html
Learning LaTex - How to get started on Windows, Linux, and OS X. http://daniel.lorch.cc/docs/learning_latex/


GENERAL PHYSICS OF MUSIC

Acoustics and Vibration Animations. Nice animations of waves, vibrating systems, and more, from Prof. Dan Russell at Kettering University.

"The Sounds Of Music". A video of a general-audience lecture by Prof. Walter Levin, from the Physics Dept at MIT. A nice introductory overview of a number of the topics we'll be covering.

Hyperphysics at Georgia State University. Covers all areas of physics, you can use it for review of basic physics principles (covered in the first three weeks of P204), or zone in to Sound and Hearing.

Physics of Music and Speech at Georgia State University. This course uses the hyperphysics system (see above).

Music Acoustics at the University of New South Wales, Australia. This site has excellent pages on how different types of instruments work. Particularly good for wind instruments.

Five high school level lessons in physics of music. Sometimes it can be really helpful to get an 'easy' overview of what you may be studying now at a more sophisticated level.

Resources for students at Salford University, UK.  Slow-motion videos of breaking wineglasses, guitar string vibrating and other things.  Tutorials on waves and sound at two levels: GCSE (easier, more like high school physics), A-level (more math, like AP physics or introductory college physics) .

Physics of music at University of Chicago, Urbana-Champaign

Fun, interactive simulations of physical phenomena from the Physics Education Technology project at the University of Colorado.

Java Applets on Physics by Walter Fendt

Science Snacks. Fun hands-on experiments from the San Francisco Exploratorium.


FOURIER SYNTHESIS

Build your own waveforms and listen!

Physics Applets from University of Colorado. There's a nice Fourier synthesis one here.

http://www.phy.ntnu.edu.tw/java/sound/sound.html

http://homepages.gac.edu/~huber/fourier/index.html


INSTRUMENT PAGES

Unusual intruments. A site of unusual bowed stringed instruments. Great fun!

Strange intruments. Lots of great pictures

Piano acoustics. Five Lectures

Folkurban. This site is really great fun: a how-to guide to making all kinds of musical instruments out of goodness-knows-what.

The Oxford University Society of Change Ringers
North American Guild of Change Ringing. Change ringing is a traditional English musical form based on mathematical permutations and played on church bells.


MUSICAL SCALES - Tunings and Temperaments

A good discussion of tuning and temperaments, with a focus on piano.

Audio clips (harpsichord and piano) of music played in different temperaments. Excellent demos of the problems of changing keys in just temperament.

Interesting descriptions of the beauties of UN-equal temperaments.

Just intonation and historical temperaments explained.

Very nice soundclips of chords, transpositions, and music played in different temperaments. Excellent illustration of the problems (and advantages) of playing transposing music in historic temperaments.

Another good website with audio clips. "The Mathematics of Tuning and Temperament, with audio examples"

A survey of alternate (microtonal) and historical tunings by Kyle Gann. Lots of links.

As you investigate this topic, be aware that tuning and temperament has been an issue of heated (often fanatical) debate for about 800 years! Try to keep a critical eye (and ear) open, and try to see both sides of the issues before YOU form your own opinions!


FREE SOFTWARE FOR SOUND ANALYSIS

Praat | Wavesurfer


If you find any cool links you think we should include, please email Dr. Selby at:


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